Cincinnati-Indianapolis-Chicago high speed rail (Columbus, Dayton: home, find a job, live)

[Kamms]

Originally Posted by ProkNo5

Philly is the hub, just like Chicago would be. Harrisburg is the satellite city, just like Cincinnati would be. Keystone service is specifically for Harrisburg, a city of 50,000 people in a metro of 530,000 with no rail and only 6 day/week his service.

Philly is a hub in the midst of the I-95 corridor connected to about 47 million people.

This whole high-speed rail from Cinci to Chicago is a fantasy; the population is not there, sorry Cinci!

[RustBeltOptimist]

Support for Chicago-Cincinnati high-speed rail grows - Cincinnati Business Courier

Apparently calls for a line are moving forward on the regional level despite the armchair experts here saying it won't happen. Like I said before, all that really matters is its ability to disrupt the commercial air traffic. Given that flights from CVG to O'Hare are among the most frequently delayed in the country, this isn't going to be that difficult a hurdle to clear. 46% of all Delta flights to O'Hare from Cincinnati will have a delay of an hour or more, you add in travel to the airport and security delays, and suddenly it makes a four hour train ride not so bad in comparison.

[unusualfire]

Funny how people think it won't happen. I guess they have more insight than the people putting up the money for the studies. I side with the experts not the amateurs.

[WILWRadio]

Originally Posted by Kamms

Philly is a hub in the midst of the I-95 corridor connected to about 47 million people.

This whole high-speed rail from Cinci to Chicago is a fantasy; the population is not there, sorry Cinci!

Yep. I once saw a study and it said that the two cities that had the most people residing within a two hour drive were Philly and Hartford.

[WILWRadio]

Originally Posted by RustBeltOptimist

Support for Chicago-Cincinnati high-speed rail grows - Cincinnati Business Courier

Apparently calls for a line are moving forward on the regional level despite the armchair experts here saying it won't happen. Like I said before, all that really matters is its ability to disrupt the commercial air traffic. Given that flights from CVG to O'Hare are among the most frequently delayed in the country, this isn't going to be that difficult a hurdle to clear. 46% of all Delta flights to O'Hare from Cincinnati will have a delay of an hour or more, you add in travel to the airport and security delays, and suddenly it makes a four hour train ride not so bad in comparison.

Well, if they can use existing rails and they find out it won't cost hundreds of millions to billions to develop then I say give it a try. But bear in mind freight trains get the right of way on the rails now and the path of the high speed train will likely cross with several freight trains during each run. Hey, they've already run up a 16 trillion dollar debt at the national level what's a few billion more eh?

[Kamms]

Originally Posted by RustBeltOptimist

Support for Chicago-Cincinnati high-speed rail grows - Cincinnati Business Courier

Apparently calls for a line are moving forward on the regional level despite the armchair experts here saying it won't happen. Like I said before, all that really matters is its ability to disrupt the commercial air traffic. Given that flights from CVG to O'Hare are among the most frequently delayed in the country, this isn't going to be that difficult a hurdle to clear. 46% of all Delta flights to O'Hare from Cincinnati will have a delay of an hour or more, you add in travel to the airport and security delays, and suddenly it makes a four hour train ride not so bad in comparison.

Go ahead and have your high-speed train to Chicago, for whatever reason there is for it. Chicago is stagnating but I never got the whole ''Chicago is the best place ever'' mentality anyway. So long as no tax dollars are involved and this is all privately funded, then go for it.

What is the ridership anticipated for this train service? Expected cost to build and maintain and the one-way and round-trip fares from Cinci-Chicago?

Originally Posted by unusualfire

Funny how people think it won't happen. I guess they have more insight than the people putting up the money for the studies. I side with the experts not the amateurs.

Go for it with private investor money and tax dollars. A sign of real feasibility and profit is using private dollars for this. Good luck with this train line.

Originally Posted by WILWRadio

Well, if they can use existing rails and they find out it won't cost hundreds of millions to billions to develop then I say give it a try. But bear in mind freight trains get the right of way on the rails now and the path of the high speed train will likely cross with several freight trains during each run. Hey, they've already run up a 16 trillion dollar debt at the national level what's a few billion more eh?

Right, build it on existing rails with private money. Will not be such a high-speed line but Cinci will get its train line to Chicago so it can think its a cosmopolitan city.

[WILWRadio]

One thing people have to keep in mind is what demographics are the high speed rail proponents thinking will use the system between Chicago-Indy and Cincy? Are they going to be executives that live 100 miles outside of the city and commute to work by car, bus or metro rail at this time? Vacationers?

This is why rail can work in the densely populated northeast region. People actually commute daily or at least weekly to and from the major cities. I mentioned my friend's now retired father used to commute to his office at Exxon in Manhattan daily from the Hartford area. 130 plus miles. And the husband of my mother's friend used to commute to NYC daily from the Hartford area. And you will also find people that live well outside of Boston in areas of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island also Connecting commuting into the city on a daily basis. These are high paid executives and lots of them the make the metro rail systems in Boston and NYC or Philly doable. Same with Chicago. The question is what kind of traffic and how much will be generated from Indy and Cincy to the other cities? You won't find many people from Chicago commuting to Cincy for business unless Chicago companies have a number of regional offices in the Cincy area and have to get their executives into the city every day. And the same goes for to and from Indy and Cincy to each other.

For this to have any chance at working the rail company will have to market this to the people that fly between these cities on a daily or weekly basis. Make it cost effective and show how much time the rail rider can save when commuting between Cincy and Chicago and points in between. That is the only real way this has a shot at working. But if the number of commuters is not there to make this come close to breaking even, I doubt it will get built.

[Kamms]

Originally Posted by unusualfire

Funny how people think it won't happen. I guess they have more insight than the people putting up the money for the studies. I side with the experts not the amateurs.

Yeah, trusting these studies is a sure bet considering these are paid companies that basically provide what the payor wants. In this case, it will be rosy estimates of cost, maintenance, ridership and fares.

Good luck with that 110 mph 4-hour trip to Chicago if Amtrak is running this line. Amtrak employees have generally bad attitudes with a ''could care less'' attitude; but what do you expect from government employees.

[unusualfire]

^I may never take it because I don't need to go to Chicago for anything. But plenty of people would with no other means of transportation. Amtrak costs too much anyway. I priced a ticket to go to California. It was the price of a first class airline ticket and took almost a week.

However. It's always good to have options if you don't have any in the first place.

[Kamms]

Originally Posted by WILWRadio

One thing people have to keep in mind is what demographics are the high speed rail proponents thinking will use the system between Chicago-Indy and Cincy? Are they going to be executives that live 100 miles outside of the city and commute to work by car, bus or metro rail at this time? Vacationers?

This is why rail can work in the densely populated northeast region. People actually commute daily or at least weekly to and from the major cities. I mentioned my friend's now retired father used to commute to his office at Exxon in Manhattan daily from the Hartford area. 130 plus miles. And the husband of my mother's friend used to commute to NYC daily from the Hartford area. And you will also find people that live well outside of Boston in areas of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island also Connecting commuting into the city on a daily basis. These are high paid executives and lots of them the make the metro rail systems in Boston and NYC or Philly doable. Same with Chicago. The question is what kind of traffic and how much will be generated from Indy and Cincy to the other cities? You won't find many people from Chicago commuting to Cincy for business unless Chicago companies have a number of regional offices in the Cincy area and have to get their executives into the city every day. And the same goes for to and from Indy and Cincy to each other.

For this to have any chance at working the rail company will have to market this to the people that fly between these cities on a daily or weekly basis. Make it cost effective and show how much time the rail rider can save when commuting between Cincy and Chicago and points in between. That is the only real way this has a shot at working. But if the number of commuters is not there to make this come close to breaking even, I doubt it will get built.

Right, so forget about the executives that have a business appointment in Blue Ash using this train from Chicago after travelling to downtown Chicago from Naperville.

Also, as you state, the Northeast is a different world in terms of train use; Cinci and Indy both have sub-par local transit systems with only bus service. Not sure what the Cinci streetcar will do but considering its initial route, not much. There are increasing numbers of workers commuting from Philly to NYC; key being working in Manhattan and not out on Long Island or some other far-flung location. Perhaps if it's limited communiting, making the trip on Amtrak then up to Westchester or Long Island could be doable but not on a daily basis from Philly, for example. Then again you cite a rider taking the Hartford line into NYC; a straight-shot is much better than transferring though.